Fate, Death & Rebirth
by paynesgrey
Summary: In their dreams, Sesshoumaru and Kagome realize they are meant for something much more in the future. In-progress. Written for luxken27 for fandom stocking 2012. Sesshoumaru x Kagome.


Fate, Death & Rebirth

_Part __One__: __Fate __of __Dreamers_

I.

"Human girl..." Kagome's eyes snapped open at the tone of his authoritative voice, slicing through her nerves as she stirred from sleep.

Feet crunched the grass beside her, and she realized she was alone. The other members of her party: Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Kirara and Shippou were gone, and she was strangely transplanted somewhere else. Feeling a shiver pass over her, she jumped with a start and met glowing golden eyes within the dark night.

She never expected Sesshoumaru to take her anywhere, and she knew she should be frightened, but she wasn't. Not at all. Not even the midnight kidnapping could cause her fear, and she wasn't even angry (and that she would be).

She was more curious than anything. Before waking up, she'd been dreaming of him. As strange as that sounded.

"Sesshoumaru?" she murmured.

He peered at her in tense silence, and she watched as his silver hair was captured by a breeze. He said nothing, but she could feel his eyes raking over her, looking at her curiously and with some disbelief.

"What have you done to me?" he accused suddenly. He shot closer to her, coming to her eye level as he knelt to the ground. His face bore no sincerity or tenderness. He was seething, that much was obvious, but he seemed perplexed as well.

"Excuse me?" Kagome asked, feeling just as confused as he was. She didn't expect to dream about him. She didn't expect it to be - one of those dreams, and though she could just write it off as her brain getting revenge on Inuyasha for going after Kikyou lately, or whatever, but this dream was something different. It was something beguiling and otherworldly that she could not explain.

Flashes of images from her dream came back to her, and she remembered one important scene. The deadly silver Taiyoukai had bent down to kiss her, leading her to the ground and lifting her clothes with his clawed fingers. Her body shivered thinking about it, but then she tensed as he watched her, and she could see him sniffing the air around her.

Which... was bizarre, but not something she didn't expect from the inu youkai.

"You..." He stopped, trying to use anger to mask his confusion and maybe slight embarrassment. "You cast a spell on me, miko, and entered my dreams without permission." He glared. "I should kill you for this."

"Hey, I didn't do anything! I'm a victim in this too!" she complained, waving her hands. He tilted his head, his brow knitting together.

"You have these dreams of me as well?" He seemed unconvinced. "Your powers are untrained. You do not know what you are doing. You must learn a way to cease these intrusions or I will make you stop," he threatened.

"Make me stop all you want! I'm only a human and I can't control dreams. If anything, your powers as a youkai are untrained! You're way more powerful than I am; maybe you don't know one of your powers is dream trotting!" she accused. His golden eyes widened momentarily as if he was considering it.

He was, technically, a spirit in her native folklore. Many youkai spirits had different sorts of powers, and though Kagome didn't really believe that inu youkai could enter dreams, Kagome didn't know if possibly they could. I mean, she had no idea they could have acid claws and fangs, let alone turn into giant dogs and fly around in the skies! In her time, none of that could even be feasible, but here she was, hundreds of years into the past talking to an actual dog spirit.

Stranger things...

"It is unlikely, but not impossible. Some inu youkai on my mother's side traveled within dreams to exchange battle plans or warn of prophecies, but ...those youkai were thousands of years old," he divulged. His gaze snapped toward her when he realized he was thinking aloud, and Kagome was a little shocked by that. Sesshoumaru barely spoke much at all, at least, not conversationally. He usually just tossed around threats and mocked his brother.

"Look, whatever it is, it's just a dream! Get over it! Now could you please take me back to my friends?" She pulled the blanket over her chest and felt her cheeks burn from slight embarrassment. Of course he had to kidnap her on a hot night when she was wearing flimsy clothes. Not that he would care, but Kagome cared about her own modesty at least. And after the dream she had about him, she was feeling rather uncomfortable in his presence.

"Very well," he agreed.

Kagome squealed as a _whoosh_ of air guided her through the forest and deposited her back to her friends. As expected, they were all looking around in alert, and Inuyasha caught her the moment she began tumbling down from the air. He glared at the sky as Sesshoumaru took off.

"What did that bastard do to you?" Inuyasha screamed, and he began pawing at her to make sure she wasn't hurt. Kagome pushed him away, feeling a hundred times more embarrassed with Inuyasha's hands on her after her talk with Sesshoumaru.

"Stop it! He didn't do anything. He was looking for information," she said.

"On what?"

Kagome scoffed, but she felt she had to lie. "What else? Naraku. Now put me down, Inuyasha!"

"What the hell? Why'd he take you off then?" Inuyasha asked. Miroku and Sango said nothing, only stared at her. Kagome hated the scrutiny, so she faked a yawn.

"How should I know? Your brother is a weirdo! Now can I get some sleep?" she asked, and though Inuyasha was still on edge, growling like an idiot at the empty skies, he seemed appeased by her answers.

Kagome almost dreaded going back to sleep, but as expected, in her dreams, she found Sesshoumaru again, and she knew this wouldn't be the last time she would dream about him either.

.xxxxx.

II.

The second time Sesshoumaru visited her, Kagome was back in her time. Stuck, was a better way of putting it. They had just defeated Naraku and the jewel was gone, and ultimately, Kagome was sent back to her time away from Inuyasha.

It was heartbreaking, and though the dreams with Sesshoumaru had dissipated during her time in the feudal era fighting Naraku and developing feelings for Inuyasha, she never expected to have the dreams again. Also, she believed that they stopped for Sesshoumaru too, since he'd never spoken about them again either.

Such was not the case when she was back in her own time, and her dreams of Sesshoumaru started up again, more intensely and happening like a chaptered story.

When she'd ran into him after one of her tutoring sessions at school, she began to believe their existence was becoming more serious, and more valid.

"Kagome," he said, and she was hardly surprised he addressed her with such familiarity. Within the dreams, as confusing as they were, she and Sesshoumaru were so intimately close. Of course, they weren't like that in real life, and it was almost laughable to think such a thing, but their persistent dreams of each other were beginning to change her perspective.

"I've been waiting for you," she said. It tore her heart to say such a thing. She still felt a deep affection for Inuyasha, and she missed him terribly everyday. But she was beginning to lose hope that it wasn't meant to be, even though she had a feeling deep in her gut she belonged in Inuyasha's time. She belonged with him.

Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, seemed so at home in this time. He even wore a dark suit and tie, and his hair, still silver, was pulled back in a clean tail. It was a little shorter, probably to be more manageable in this time.

When she looked at him, her heart ached. She couldn't help think she belonged to him too.

"The dreams?" she asked.

"Yes, they are not dreams, Kagome. They are real. They are..." He paused. "Our future."

"But Inuyasha..."

Sesshoumaru's eyes seemed softer, and she didn't know how she didn't notice it until now. "He is your future too. I came to tell you. You'll be going home soon."

"Wait," she said, as he appeared to leave. "Don't go. Can't we talk somewhere?"

"I should not have come," and he shook his head as she began to talk. "Just remember what I have said, dearest."

Kagome's eyes widened at his endearment. She watched him walk into a crowd down the sidewalk, and soon he disappeared through the afternoon haze.

.xxxxxx.

III.

Kagome did not see Sesshoumaru again until she returned to the feudal era, by some chance of fate, and found Inuyasha again as well.

She even married him, though she hesitated at first. She wondered everyday what Sesshoumaru had meant, that she belonged to Inuyasha's future as well as Sesshoumaru's. What was going to happen? And how could she have seen her future in dreams so far back as when they were battling Naraku? And why were the dreams sporadic, when somewhere more frequent and others coming hardly ever at all?

Kagome couldn't explain it, but knowing what the future could bring, she was almost wary of what the parts of her future would be that weren't in her dreams. She knew that she would be with Sesshoumaru, but then what would happen to her and Inuyasha?

That night she and Inuyasha had made love, but Kagome knew she'd initiated it to soothe his distress over her hesitation and long thoughts whenever he'd become affectionate with her. She loved him; there was no denying that, but she couldn't help feel a piece of her heart belonged to Sesshoumaru, the secret piece that had been forged within their dreams.

As Inuyasha slept soundly cradling her, Kagome closed her eyes and drifted into her dreams. The surroundings were familiar.

She was in a courtyard with an expansive garden. Underneath the garden the skies and clouds rushed around them like rapids of water. At the end of the courtyard a long staircase lengthened upward into a palace, heavily guarded by many lesser youkai. Kagome knew in her heart that within that palace, there was a throne, and on that throne Sesshoumaru's mother was sitting regally, gazing with boredom over the human realm.

Kagome also knew that she was not pleased by Kagome's presence, but it was prophesied she be here. A powerful miko, born like a phoenix from the violent deaths of a human and hanyou, would couple with her son, and in their union, the youkai realm would be safe from the changing human realm. Their combination of power would turn them all into eternal spirits, to be protected from the evolution and forgetful minds of the humans they sometimes destroy and protect. Within their marriage, the two realms can finally separate, and both species can live in peace.

"It must be done," she decreed, and Kagome remembered how Sesshoumaru's mother cupped her cheeks and tilted her head, looking at her with some sympathy in those cold eyes. "You see, child, you and your hanyou were always meant to die together, but you were not to stay dead, not with power like that. Not with power that we need." She brushed her clawed fingers though Kagome's hair. "My son was never meant to be with any youkai woman. They do not suit him, and no one else but you ever would."

"But...why me?"

"You are the last miko to be tied to the Shikon Jewel, the jewel made of demons and miko power. It was inside you, and though it is gone, you remain as the other part of the Shikon's soul, the residual energy of its existence. You alone have the power to save us from extinction by the humans. By uniting with my son, you will keep us safe."

Kagome looked over at Sesshoumaru nervously. She had learned to care him slowly thanks to the dreams that brought them together through time. "What do we have to do?"

Sesshoumaru stepped forward. "We must marry and have a child. Once the birthing blood of our child is spilled and she begins life, the realms will separate."

"It is the prophecy that ends all prophecies," his mother said. "Then, we will be nothing but spirits to the humans. And to us, they will be nothing but occasional snacks." She giggled a little, and Kagome felt she must be used to his mother's humor during serious times. Akani-sama was never one to let depressing things ruin her fun.

"Okay, I'm ready," said Kagome. "I have no choice. You said I was dead."

"You were born again," Sesshoumaru said. "For me."

Kagome met his eyes, and she understood that time when he'd met her at her school in the future. He was setting her up for this moment. It'd been a warning but also a blessing. Her life had begun anew, and every dream she'd ever had with Sesshoumaru - every tender moment, it would come true.

Her face flamed as he came close to her.

"I can't believe the Sesshoumaru I knew would agree to such a thing, or would believe in such a prophecy." She looked at him as he said nothing, only stared at her as if he was delving into her very bones. "You hated humans."

"I do not hate you." His kiss was so tender that it woke her from the dream. Tears had spilled from her eyes, and she realized she'd still been in the arms of his brother, her husband. Turning to Inuyasha, she continued to weep. She knew that soon both of them would die.

She'd lose Inuyasha, and she'd someday no longer be human. Until then, she didn't know when or how, but they would die, and then she'd be leaving Inuyasha.

She leaving him for Sesshoumaru, in a new life she could hardly believe was her own.

.xxxxx.

IV.

When soldiers purged their village, Inuyasha fought valiantly, but they used miko in their ranks, and slaughtered all who protected him and opposed them.

Kagome was the first to die, trying to protect everyone else. A general charged forward at her on a horse as black as death and sliced off her head. She could still hear Inuyasha's cry as he was too late to save her.

When she rose as a spirit, she saw Inuyasha's corpse, hacked up beside her with sutras all over him preventing his healing.

"It is very sad, but my brother died with the woman he loved," Sesshoumaru said.

"I'm not dead," she said bitterly, unable to draw her eyes away from the carnage.

"In this life you are," Sesshoumaru told her. A long, pained silence passed between them as Kagome wept for her husband, for her small children, and for her friends and family in the village. Finally, she heard Sesshoumaru's voice like a cold breeze. "Come."

Kagome nodded. It was time to go.

"You know what we have to do," he said, and he took her hand.

"I've been ready for this for a long time," she said, and as she felt his warmth draw her into a upward wind, she wondered if this was really love born anew, or some bleak destiny that forced her to love again.

She didn't know the answer, so all she could was fly heavenward.

Maybe in time, she'd learn to love Sesshoumaru. And perhaps, somewhere within her heart, sleeping, she already did.


End file.
